I stare at him. My mind is racing, trying to find the trap, the angle, the reason this can't possibly be real. I glance down the hallway behind him, but there’s no one else that I can see. I can’tseea trap, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one waiting.
"What's the plan?" I finally ask, my voice cracking.
Relief crosses his face. "The compound is mostly asleep. Iosef and his men are all drunk to hell. There are guards, but I watched their rotations, and there’s a door at the end of the hallway with the cells. If there’s anyone watching it, I’ll take them out. We’ll get a vehicle out of the garage and get to a point where I can radio for extraction. I’ll get you out of here and back to Boston.”
I stare at him. It sounds too good to be true. It probably is. But what’s the alternative? Keep rotting in here until they finally decide to give me another chance to be their toy?
“Can you walk?” Kazimir asks again impatiently, and I glance down at myself. I’m wearing a threadbare silk slip, which is torn and filthy now, and my feet are bare. I have bruises on top of bruises, cuts that haven't healed, ribs that might be cracked. I haven't eaten a full meal in longer than I can remember.
"I don't know," I admit.
"We'll have to find out." He moves closer, carefully, like he's approaching a wounded animal. "I'm going to help you up."
Every instinct I have screams at me not to let him touch me. But every instinct I have also screams at me to get out of this cell, to take any chance at freedom, no matter how slim.
I don't have anyone else. No one else is coming for me. No one else even knows I'm here.
It's Kazimir or nothing.
"Fine," I bite out. "But don't think this means I forgive you. Don't think this makes us even. You owe me this. You owe me so much more than this."
"I know," he says quietly.
He reaches for me, and I let him. His hands are careful as he grips my arms and slowly lifts me up. Pain explodes through my body, and I bite down on my lip hard enough to taste blood, refusing to cry out. With the possibility of freedom on the horizon now, I’m afraid that if I’m too weak, he’ll leave me afterall. I don’t know why he’s sticking his neck out for me like this when he never did before, but I can’t help but think that it won’t last if I can’t keep up.
My legs shake when I try to put weight on them. The room tilts and spins. Kazimir's arm slides around my waist, supporting me, and I hate how much I need it.
"Can you make it?" he asks.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" I grit out through the pain, hating all of this. My body doesn’t feel like mine any longer. It used to be strong, fit, capable of posing in all sorts of contortions for photographers, gliding across a stage, performing jumps and turns, walking into ballrooms in impossibly high heels. My once-injured knee has been painful since I got here, but it’s disappeared into the mass of other hurts.
"No," he agrees gruffly. "You don't."
With his arm supporting me, we move toward the cell door. Each step is agony. My bare feet are still sore from where they were beaten after I tried to run, and the cold stone floor feels like ice against my raw skin. The old cuts on my soles threaten to reopen, tugging at the skin, and I wince with every step, expecting to feel hot, sticky blood beneath my toes. Just walking is more pain than anyone should have to endure.
But I keep moving because the alternative is staying here, and even though I can only imagine what they’ll do to me if we’re caught, now that the possibility has presented itself, I would rather die trying to escape than spend one more night in this cell.
The corridor outside is dimly lit by security lighting, leaving the center of the aisles shrouded in shadow. The walls are the same rough stone as my cell, weeping with moisture. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the drip of water.
Kazimir moves almost silently, keeping me close to his side. He’s supporting most of my weight, and I hate how weak I am, how much I have to depend on him. My legs threaten to giveout with every step. My vision swims. I focus on breathing, on putting one foot in front of the other, on not collapsing.
As we pass the other cells, I force myself not to look inside of them. I know better. If there are other women in there, other people suffering the way I've suffered, I can't allow myself to think about them right now. I can't save them. I can barely save myself. The guilt of it sits heavily in my chest, but I push it down. Survival first. Guilt later. Maybe there’s some way to convince Kazimir to come back for them later, some way to talk him into it, but I won’t help anyone by getting myself caught or killed now.
If there is a later.
There’s a short staircase leading up to the concrete floor surrounding the cells on all sides above us, with an opening in the center to look down—where guards would patrol if Iosef and his men actually thought there was any danger of us escaping. They’re hardly an effort to scale, but right now, looking at them makes me want to crumple.
"I can carry you," Kazimir offers quietly.
"No." The word comes out more forcefully than I intended. "I can do it. You need to be ready if there’s someone on the other side of the door."
He shifts next to me, but he doesn’t argue, and I know I’m right. He can’t defend against anyone outside if he’s carrying me in his arms.
I grip the metal railing. It feels cold enough to burn against my palm as I pull myself up the first step. Pain shoots through my legs, my back, my ribs. Everything protests. Everything screams at me to stop.
I take another step.
And another.
